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arXiv:2403.15342 · Journal of Physics A Mathematical and Theoretical

Bounding the rotating wave approximation for coupled harmonic oscillators

Tim Heib, Paul Lageyre, Alessandro Ferreri, Frank K. Wilhelm, Gheorghe Sorin Paraoanu, Daniel Klaus Burgarth, Andreas Wolfgang Schell, David Edward Bruschi

Published Apr 15, 2025• 1 citation
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Abstract

Abstract In this work we study the validity of the rotating wave approximation of an ideal system composed of two harmonic oscillators evolving with a quadratic Hamiltonian and arbitrarily strong interaction. We prove its validity for arbitrary states by bounding the error introduced. We then restrict ourselves to the dynamics of Gaussian states and are able to fully quantify the deviation of arbitrary pure Gaussian states that evolve through different dynamics from a common quantum state. We show that this distance is fully determined by the first and second moments of the statistical distribution of the number of excitations created from the vacuum during an appropriate effective time-evolution. We use these results to completely control the dynamics for this class of states, therefore providing a toolbox to be used in quantum optics and quantum information. Applications and potential physical implementations are also discussed.

DOI
10.1088/1751-8121/adcd16

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Abstract In this work we study the validity of the rotating wave approximation of an ideal system composed of two harmonic oscillators evolving with a quadratic Hamiltonian and arbitrarily strong interaction. We prove its validity for arbitrary states by bounding the error introduced. We then restrict ourselves to the dynamics of Gaussian states and are able to fully quantify the deviation of arbitrary pure Gaussian states that evolve through different dynamics from a common quantum state. We show that this distance is fully determined by the first and second moments of the statistical distribution of the number of excitations created from the vacuum during an appropriate effective time-evolution. We use these results to completely control the dynamics for this class of states, therefore providing a toolbox to be used in quantum optics and quantum information. Applications and potential physical implementations are also discussed.
In this work we study the validity of the rotating wave approximation of an ideal system composed of two harmonic oscillators evolving with a quadratic Hamiltonian and arbitrarily strong interaction. We prove its validity for arbitrary states by bounding the error introduced. We then restrict ourselves to the dynamics of Gaussian states and are able to fully quantify the deviation of arbitrary pure Gaussian states that evolve through different dynamics from a common quantum state. We show that this distance is fully determined by the first and second moments of the statistical distribution of the number of excitations created from the vacuum during an appropriate effective time-evolution. We use these results to completely control the dynamics for this class of states, therefore providing a toolbox to be used in quantum optics and quantum information. Applications and potential physical implementations are also discussed.
Systems of interacting harmonic oscillators have recently received considerable attention as models for describing a variety of physical problems. We have investigated the validity of the rotating-wave approximation which constitutes the traditional approach to the solution of the dynamical problem by comparing it with the exact solution. A numerical comparison has been made and the limits of validity of the rotating-wave approximation has been established in terms of the strength of oscillator interaction.In particular, the time development of dynamical operators and certain transition probabilities have been compared. In the region where the rotating-wave approximation is valid, the time evolution of the quasiprobability distribution $P(\ensuremath{\alpha}, t)$ of one oscillator is given for several initial conditions. A counting scheme similar to the argument given by Feynman for the driven harmonic oscillator, is proposed for the interpretation of the time-dependent transition amplitudes between number states.
We study the time evolution of an ideal system composed of two harmonic oscillators coupled through a quadratic Hamiltonian with arbitrary interaction strength. We solve its dynamics analytically by employing tools from symplectic geometry. In particular, we use this result to completely characterize the dynamics of the two oscillators interacting in the ultrastrong-coupling regime with additional single-mode squeezing on both oscillators, as well as higher-order terms. Furthermore, we compute quantities of interest, such as the average number of excitations and the correlations that are established between the two subsystems due to the evolution. We find that this model predicts a second-order phase transition and we compute the critical exponents and the critical value. We also provide an exact decoupling of the time evolution in terms of simple quantum optical operations, which can be used for practical implementations and studies. Finally, we show how our techniques can be extended to include more oscillators and higher-order interactions.
We derive state-dependent bounds on the difference between two quantum evolutions generated by unbounded Hamiltonians sharing a common form domain. The main technical tool is a second integration by parts, performed at the level of sesquilinear forms rather than at the operator level, which removes the need for a common invariant operator domain. The resulting estimate involves the norm of the time-integrated difference of the two generators, rather than the integral of its norm, and is therefore sensitive to the averaging effects produced by fast-oscillating terms. As an application we prove a quantitative bound on the rotating-wave approximation for spin-boson models with a structured boson field, described by an arbitrary massive dispersion relation on a general measure space and by a suitable class of form factors. The proof involves a careful analysis of the high-frequency scaling. The bound holds on a dense subspace of states, is fully explicit, and all the constants entering it depend only on the parameters of the model and not on the frequency scale, so that the approximation becomes exact in the limit of large frequency.
We study the dynamics of two qubits interacting with a single mode of a harmonic oscillator beyond the rotating wave approximation in the ideally degenerate regime. Exact analytic expressions are obtained for state properties of interest, including qubit entanglement for a certain class of initial states of the oscillator and the qubits. Qualitative differences and similarities in the evolution of the qubits in the degenerate regime when the oscillator is treated quantum mechanically and classically are discussed.
The statistical properties of systems of coupled quantum-mechanical harmonic oscillators are analyzed. The Hamiltonian for the system is assumed to be an inhomogeneous quadratic form in the creation and annihilation operators, and is allowed to have an explicit time dependence. The relationship to classical theory is emphasized by expressing pure states in terms of the coherent-state vectors, and density operators by means of the PPP representation and an analogous representation involving the Wigner function. The state which evolves from an initially coherent state of the system is found, and equations governing the time evolution of the Wigner function and the weight function for the PPP representation are derived, in differential and integral form, for arbitrary initial states of the system. The results remain valid for couplings which do not preserve the vacuum state, and for cases in which the time dependence of the coupling parameters gives rise to large-scale amplification of the initial field intensities. The analysis is performed by first treating general linear inhomogeneous canonical transformations on the oscillator variables, and then specializing to the case in which these transformations represent the solutions for the Heisenberg operators in terms of their initial values. The results are illustrated within the context of a model of parametric amplification.